Khanate of Khiva

The Khanate of Khiva was a Central Asian Turkic state that existed from 1511 to 1920, with Khiva serving as its capital. The khanate was established by the descendants of Genghis Khan, emerging from the ashes of the Timurid Empire and the Golden Horde. The country was ruled by the Uzbek Khongirads of central Astrakhan, and it covered the historical region of Khwarezm. From 1740 to 1746, the Afsharid dynasty of Persia occupied the khanate, but Persian pretensions ended with Nadir Shah's murder in 1747. In 1873, Khiva was much reduced in size and became a protectorate of the Russian Empire. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, Khiva also underwent a revolution, and in 1920 a Khorezm People's Soviet Republic was established in the former khanate.